Thread: Bring back the Hercus 9" ARM

our ridiculous OH&S laws

Not long ago as the Team Leader of a large crew of blokes at a mine, when we had Safety Meetings and the old timers were carrying on how its all BS I use to ask in a normal conversation level "hold your hands up" and they would say "huh' ? did not hear you (from hearing damage) and then after repeating louder and they held their twisted fingers with some missing or parts of, and their skin all sickly looking and cracked up and nails falling off from washing parts without gloves on, the rest of the crew use to burst out laughing.

When I started in the Coal Mines as an apprentice I use to get called a girl and a "woofter" if you know what I mean because i use to wear ear muffs and safety glasses when using big hand-held grinders on the Hard Facing of Digger Buckets.
I have been on sites after people have died from not following Safety first because they were trying to save time (you ARE getting paid by the hour) and it makes you sick.
Had another young bloke lose his sight in an eye because he did not have his safety glasses on when using a wire brush in a electric drill, the bit of wire was sticking out of his eyeball. Ouch.
I agree it may take a little longer sometimes but your health is No1.
Nobody should get injured at work, its not worth it, it ruins your time off !.
NO job is worth dieing for.

You can teach Maths, English and Science, but you can't teach Common Sense, also very hard to educate fools when it comes to their own safety.

Originally Posted by scottyd

Im afraid he isnt right there. My school and hundreds upon hundreds of others make wooden pencil cases by the truckload. Its the second job they make in our year 7 class, right after a personalised door stop. The kids are welcome to use them as a pencil case but ive not seen one used yet in that way. Instead we also tell them they can put their own goggles in there and store them in their locker to stop them getting scratched up, which many of them do.

Its funny, over the years projects come and go in popularity, but the pencil box is -always- popular.

I personally followed up on the "Pencil Case" situation with the grandson a week ago, on the front line.
He informed me that they do make Pencil Cases (now called Pencil Boxes, his quote) in the woodworking class, however are not permitted to take said wooden case or box into the regular classroom, as they are only permitted to take in a soft vinyl type holder.
The rules may vary around the state. He lives in northern NSW, & its about 8 hours driving time from my home, however I did pusue the subject fully.
That is the situation at the school he attends.
regards
Bruce

Its a shame that your grand son is in such a over-policed school bruce. Moves like that are yet more fuel for the kids to ask why we bother making a pencil box in the first place. It takes 7 weeks (give or take) to make one in year 7, it takes 2 minutes to hussle the parents for one on the weekly shop at woolies. I have to explain sometimes that you dont always need to make something so that you can have the end product, sometimes the purpose of making something is to enjoy the making of. Maybe, just maybe, after youve made something, you could even give it to someone else! Im probably painting an unrealistically gloomy picture here, there are staff and students who still get it and find a real thrill out of industrial arts.

Im actually finding teaching in a regional area a little better than elsewhere on the common sense front. At a previous employer, I got in trouble for servicing and repairing machines. As a teacher, a machine down is a bored and unoccupied student, which is a distraction for another student and next thing you know, the cancer has spread and 15 teenage boys are angle grinding desks 'cause its funny. I see it as part of my job to make sure their gear is in working order. Sorry, cant do that, if the maintinence isnt done right and a pro needs to do the repair or worse still, someone gets injured, then I and all above me get in trouble. And im talking about things like removing the spindle from a hercus 260 because nobody (read: the people supposed to do the servicing) thought to put some oil inside the belt cone. Now Im in a regional school and my boss asks that I tell him what im doing before getting the green light. The other day he put in a good word for me after replacing the spindle bearings of a drill press. After some delightful human destroyed the bearing preload nut during the installation, I had to make a new part to get the machine back in action. A couple of hours later and some common sense, my drill was singing again and kids could keep using it. The total cost? 8 cents for a grub screw I didnt have on the shelf. Everything else recycled or claimed from scrap bins from local workshops. The best bit is that many students saw the work being done, asked some serious questions and got to see some (admittedly lightweight) engineering being done in their workshops.

So there is hope yet!

Originally Posted by OnTheWrongPlane

Not long ago as the Team Leader of a large crew of blokes at a mine, when we had Safety Meetings and the old timers were carrying on how its all BS I use to ask in a normal conversation level "hold your hands up" and they would say "huh' ? did not hear you (from hearing damage) and then after repeating louder and they held their twisted fingers with some missing or parts of, and their skin all sickly looking and cracked up and nails falling off from washing parts without gloves on, the rest of the crew use to burst out laughing.

When I started in the Coal Mines as an apprentice I use to get called a girl and a "woofter" if you know what I mean because i use to wear ear muffs and safety glasses when using big hand-held grinders on the Hard Facing of Digger Buckets.
I have been on sites after people have died from not following Safety first because they were trying to save time (you ARE getting paid by the hour) and it makes you sick.
Had another young bloke lose his sight in an eye because he did not have his safety glasses on when using a wire brush in a electric drill, the bit of wire was sticking out of his eyeball. Ouch.
I agree it may take a little longer sometimes but your health is No1.
Nobody should get injured at work, its not worth it, it ruins your time off !.
NO job is worth dieing for.

Before I start on my response, let me say I agree totally with the content of the original post.

There was no doubt OH&S regulations are needed, the problem I have with them is the crazy lengths they now go to at a business level. As a surveyor I was working on a new subdivision site recently, no work was being carried out on the site, no machines or people working there. The site was just a field with nothing out of the ordinary, more like a park really. This OH&S nazi pulls up and tells me I need to be wearing a helmut, gloves and eye protection.
I understand in particular the poor accident record the mining industry and construstion with the constant handling of potentially dangerous tools and machinery, but why in the world does a surveyor for instance, looking through a theodolite , in this situation need to take this sort of action.
Please correct me if I'm out of line but after being in building related industries for 40 years, it seems the same stupid idiots will still get hurt as they lack the common sense to realise the danger they put themselves and other people in. No amount of legislation will stop these kind of people who will behave in their normal fashion as soon as the boss isn't looking and then cry for compensation for their own actions.
As an example of stupidity, take the case of a builders labourer who was scavenging through a dumster on a building site I worked on looking for scrap metal. There was scaffolding directly above him with brickies working and a machine loading pallets a bricks to the same place. Unfortuneately for the worker and his family, the machine operator missed the landing and dropped a pallet of bricks almost cutting the man in two. Two people did stupid things that day on a site supposedly with high OH&S standards, one died and the machine operator will have to live with his actions for the rest of his live.
I was also talking to a machinist at a company who make some of the lathe parts the other week. He said a young guy had been pulled into a machine and killed by the very long sleeve protective clothing he was asked to wear to meet OH&S standards. I don't know who invents the standards but they should be made to work with their own standards(or hung which ever comes first).
I work everyday in this environment and see constant breaches of OH&S standards by all kinds of people of all levels of intelligence. It is hard to expect people to take the rules seriuosly when so many of them make absolutely no sense in real world applications.

Originally Posted by OnTheWrongPlane

Not long ago as the Team Leader of a large crew of blokes at a mine, when we had Safety Meetings and the old timers were carrying on how its all BS I use to ask in a normal conversation level "hold your hands up" and they would say "huh' ? did not hear you (from hearing damage) and then after repeating louder and they held their twisted fingers with some missing or parts of, and their skin all sickly looking and cracked up and nails falling off from washing parts without gloves on, the rest of the crew use to burst out laughing.

When I started in the Coal Mines as an apprentice I use to get called a girl and a "woofter" if you know what I mean because i use to wear ear muffs and safety glasses when using big hand-held grinders on the Hard Facing of Digger Buckets.
I have been on sites after people have died from not following Safety first because they were trying to save time (you ARE getting paid by the hour) and it makes you sick.
Had another young bloke lose his sight in an eye because he did not have his safety glasses on when using a wire brush in a electric drill, the bit of wire was sticking out of his eyeball. Ouch.
I agree it may take a little longer sometimes but your health is No1.
Nobody should get injured at work, its not worth it, it ruins your time off !.
NO job is worth dieing for.

I agree with this your saftey is paramount. I also belive the government should either not accept imports or tariff them if they are made in a country where worker safety, is not also followed! This goes for polluting rivers etc, let's not penalize our selfs

Originally Posted by achjimmy

I agree with this your saftey is paramount. I also belive the government should either not accept imports or tariff them if they are made in a country where worker safety, is not also followed! This goes for polluting rivers etc, let's not penalize our selfs

What about the responsibility of the employee to turn up for work sober, not drugged out of it with his shirt hanging out and long hair hanging dangerously ??? About time people took their own safety seriously, instead of looking for someone else to blame for their own stupidity. A prime example of stupidity was the bloke in Sydney a couple of weeks ago sleeping on the deck of a crane 10 stories in the air, Bosses fault, I don't think so !!!

As I stated earlier you can teach Maths, English and Science, BUT you can't teach common sense.